


That Place on the Corner remix

by pastann



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Gen, Magical Realism, kototyph
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2019-09-25 01:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17111696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastann/pseuds/pastann
Summary: WIP





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kototyph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kototyph/gifts).
  * Inspired by [That Place on the Corner](https://archiveofourown.org/works/450801) by [kototyph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kototyph/pseuds/kototyph). 



Jensen grits his teeth, grips the Minnow’s steering wheel, and he and Dad’s old car, (illegally) given a name, bump over the wavy, irregular cobblestone street running down a hill to meet 22nd -- one of the few old streets in Seattle not paved over with asphalt, and it’s steep -- and doesn’t look back at mom and dad’s old house.

Whispers a charm under his breath and promises the Minnow a wash and detailing if she can just give him twenty miles a gallon on the highway. Twenty. That's all he's asking for, and they’ll make the trip from Seattle to Vetelas Hills, Michigan, where Uncle Jim’s old house is waiting.

The Minnow doesn’t grumble a word in reply, and they roll out ahead of Seattle’s early morning traffic jam.

It's shaping up to be of those blindingly bright, clear days, sky rolling on mile after cloudless mile above him, the concrete and gleaming copper warding obelisks along I-90 never out of sight, even on the tightest curves.

The 90 crosses Lake Washington, winds into the mountains, through the bucolic alpine pass that looks like a flat meadow, and further, under the shadow cast by a dynamite-blasted rock face towering up on the left, and a life-sucking, flat, dead lake with a gray gravel beach on the right. The signs say Keechalus Lake. There’s a curse of ill-luck on the land. The road by the lake bears shiny copper wards laid into the surface of the highway, burnished every spring by one of Uncle Jim’s great-great-great-great grand nephews, a dragon hailing from Seatac.

The wards extend a safe mile or so past the lake, but it’s not enough to lift the pall lying over the Minnow. She’s cruising along fine, but her rumble’s wrong, and she’s not talking to him.

He rolls down the window, and chants. The blasting mountain wind rips apart the words and pummels the cab, and he lets the miles and the standing wards on the highway wash her clean of unwanted enchantments.

Tall, spare wind turbines march out at odd angles like an abstract landscape art in white. The sky east of the pass, is empty and clear, not a single dragon-towed zeppelin in sight.

The Minnow and he, cross the Columbia River. The murky water’s placid and dull, backed by dry, grey-yellow hills. An occasional patch of green, with its concomitant irrigation system, hugs a curve in the highway, easy on the eyes. He rolls down the window again, and the wind brings with it the scent of earthy green loam, and the Minnow groans.

They speed by flat, wide open, grey concrete Spokane with its one tall building: a squat, square hospital next to the highway, and on through Idaho -- wouldn’t have known it except for Google Maps keeping pace on his phone; doesn’t dare to stop; cruises into Montana, and hits Missoula late in the afternoon, before the Minnow’s roar steadies out, a contented hum he’s glad to hear.

There's a sign for gas. The light reflecting off the Minnow’s hood glimmers agreeably, and he decides to make a pit stop, and let the imprint of the leprechaun’s gold price fade from his ass, where it’s rolled up on the bench seat in a thin towel, with a blessing of protection dyed into the threads. Notices it more than he’d expect, and one hand down the back of his pants, there’s an oozing welt he doesn’t remember getting, and he should’ve, and his fingers come back flecked with black flecks of dried blood, and a long smear of fresh.

And the past few days are blank.

The ramp leads down to a piece of land sheltered by the earthen rampart of the highway and guarded by a squat stone menhir sitting solid in the middle of a bare dirt traffic circle.

A Conoco gas station sits kitty-corner to a red, steeple-roofed coffee shop, and across the street there’s a square, 4-story endocrinology center -- wouldn’tve thought there’d be call for one of this size in a state ruled by Were packs, maximum human population of 1 per 88 square miles, but what does he know, excess humans are subject to cull.

A dusty white and blue Dodge Neon carrying two passengers, pulls away, as Jensen pulls in next to the Conoco’s convenience store.

A Chinese restaurant on the next lot down the road, faded red roof matching the faded red roof of the gas station, catches his eye. The Chinese restaurant’s parking lot is strangely busy.

There are duffel bags thrown willy-nilly by the curb and a group of guys a couple dozen strong in tank-tops and shorts. As he watches, two of ‘em break off and start play wrestling on the narrow median between the gas station and the restaurant, spilling over into the road and the traffic circle. Inconsiderate, that’s what it is. A car honks, and the men lazily move out of the way. They're big, all of them, it's out of season for a high school football team, and some of ‘em look too old. Their laughter: loud and raucous over the noise of the highway, but they’re not looking his way.

He leaves the leprechuan’s gold-price up on the Minnow’s bench seat, trusting to the thin wash towel Mom bought on a trip to Japan. Opens the door, breaking the Minnow’s skin. The heat’s a blast furnace tempered by a wash of cool strength from the menhir. Keeps his eyes peeled as he walks in the store.

The clerk at the counter’s a hard-faced kid who hands over the restroom keys without giving a fuck.

Putting the key into the battered restroom door’s lock, the smell knocks him back a step. The door’s stiff in the frame. It’s a unisex bathroom with a sink, toilet, and a small trash bin overflowing with used paper towels. Foul smell aside, there’s no obvious source of stench, which means it’s everywhere.

He lifts the flap of his button-down shirt and tucks the jade button in his mouth; he’s wearing his one maged shirt, painstakingly woven and sewn by hand under mom’s supervision, every thread bound to his name. He can’t remember putting it on this morning, which is strange to say the least, but it comes in handy now.

There’s a wrinkled spot on the toilet paper, where a pee-covered finger had touched it; it’s the only roll of toilet paper visible. Jensen carefully unrolls until the paper comes off clean. Uses the wad to lift the seat, touch the flusher, turn on the tap.

The mirror’s splattered with soapy residue. While his pants are down, he turns flash on his phone, and sweeps it around his butt, puts it away without checking the pictures like he usually would. The moment he walks over the threshold of the bathroom, a weight lifts off his shoulders.

And there’s a tall kid waiting for the bathroom key at the counter, when Jensen hands it over to the clerk. Walking back to his baby, he sees a mark on the Minnow’s hood. Leans over casually. A rune of good luck, and a strong one. It looks like his work, and he wouldn’t have risked the blowback of equally strong or worse ... bad luck, without cause, but his memory comes up blank as to why he did it, as it’s been doing.

Thinks on it. The Minnow eats his money just fine: unleaded 87 octane, 0.2% magefire is $20.34 a gallon; it’s been pricey since the International Mage Council caved to mer and dragon demands for clean burning fuels years ago; Dad always complained about it, and never mentioned that the dragons’d backed it too. The old memories come easy to mind, why? He’d meant to take … who was it? Someone he trusted inside the Minnow’s strength, to split the cost of gas on the long trip, at least part of the way.

He leans against the hood, basking in the aura of the menhir, and listens to the gas rushing into the tank. Mutters a charm to send gas into the 25-gallon canisters in the bed, and enjoys the shade and the warm breeze, the distant voices, and thinks about the house. His house. His very own house Uncle Jim left to him. He shouldn't get ahead of himself, there’s the leprechaun to pay, and a promise to Uncle Jim to keep, and that ... weird tenant, who’s expecting him at 3am in two days time. No knowing what else he’s walking into; but he thinks about a garden in the rich, black earth of Michigan, towering oak trees fattening the land with their leaves, and heirloom tomatoes, basil, and peppers growing in the summer heat.

The tall, lanky kid leaving the gas station’s restroom glances at him and moves in his direction. He’d left the bathroom the same as he’d come in, but... “Love your car, man.” The kid saunters closer.

“She’s a classic,” Jensen says. Dad’s old Chevy Blazer, named with a combination of blood magic and magery, and handed down to him on his twelfth birthday, when Dad died. She always drove where he asked her, even before he got tall enough to take the wheel and see where they were heading at the same time.

“Chevy Blazer? You took off the stripe! Was she always white?” The kid’s a gusher.

“Yeah.”

“What year is she?”

“1978,” Jensen says. And she looks like she rolled off the dealer’s lot, yesterday. Blood magic keeps her pristine -- illegal or not, he’s too lazy -- and ignorant of the finer points of her workings-- to learn enough to fix her by hand, and too poor to buy her parts.

“She’s a beauty.” The kid darts close and whuffles, and Jensen nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Get outta my face.”

"Sorry dude, didn't mean to scare you." The smirk tugging at the kid’s mouth suggests this apology is less than sincere. "Really, I’m sorry.” The kid pats his chest, and thrusts out a hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Jared--Sam," and the kid blurts out his true name to a complete stranger, like a numbnut.

Jensen takes a good long look at the kid. 'Sam' has a floppy, lanky slouch, long arms and legs, curly chestnut hair, and he wears a tan cotton hoodie, better suited for fall, in the heat. He’s a part of the big group by the Chinese restaurant, but the odd one out in his clothes.

When Jensen takes the offered hand, the grip is bone-crushing in a large, calloused hand; he squeezes back firmly, but not painfully hard, because he’s not a jerk.

"You too," Jensen says automatically, and takes back his hand as soon as he can. There's something strange about Jared’s direct, unwavering stare, narrowed eyes and the look of his face.

“...What do I call you?” the kid asks.

“Sam’s good,” Jensen says.

And the kid keeps on going like he didn’t notice: "I was just going to ask…” And his gaze holds not ‘I wonder if I could take this guy,’ or ‘I wonder how he'd taste,’ and those are looks Jensen gets from frisky women, and occasionally from men for that matter....

A gleam of gold in his eyes.

The kid’s a Were.

The kid’s a Were. And for a Were, he looks, walks, and talks like a human.


	2. Chapter 2

Couple months ago, Jensen’d listened to a podcast that’d compared supe enclaves adopting human AV technology, starting around sixty years back. It said their kids looked more human, along with all the other positives and negatives of watching AV, or even TV, for hours a day. Jenny K., the school’s admin, dated a Were, and he’d met the guy once at a party. Fooled him face-to-face for a split-second, but this kid...

The big group in the parking lot makes more sense now, he was slow to pick up on it; the heat and the vibration of the road, and the incipient chronic kidney disease from eight hours without a restroom break got to him. He must’ve seen at least fifteen documentaries on Weres, on PBS, the Discovery Channel, UW television, and TLC, and YouTube -- Dad loved watching ‘em -- David Attenborough said it the most memorably … melodramatically, his little sister said...

‘Following the tradition of thousands of years, in the spring, the young and unattached males are expunged from the safety of the pack and into the wider world: a mass diaspora such as is unequaled by any other supernatural race.’

In any case, ‘Sam’ blunders on with his ask: "...Any chance you're headed out of town? More than fifty or a hundred miles out? My girlfriend died, and I need to get out of town.” He adds hurriedly, "It doesn't have to be to any specific place. Just as far as you're willing."

Except it’s not spring, it’s well into late summer, and most of the group looks older than adolescent. It would be an experience to be a part of the kid’s diaspora, but Weres usurping the alpha and committing pack crimes not adjudicated by state, federal, or international laws -- Jensen’s not sure what those are exactly, are also driven out.

“Little late for a cull,” Jensen comments.

“Hey, you know about it!” Sam says. “The Alpha decided last minute. I was plannin’ to go to U of M; I have to move out of state,” and the kid looks down for a moment, and Jensen feels sorry for him.

“I have money, look,” and the kid reaches for his wallet, “I’ll pay you for gas--”

"Good Lord!" gets surprised out of Jensen at the sight of the wad of cash in Jared's hand. The kid's carrying some serious money; at least half an inch of crisp, fresh-from-the-bank c-notes, and Jensen glances around warily -- no one seems to be paying attention. Weres might be cocky bastards, but there's confident and then there's just plain stupid. And there's plenty of rough waiting for an numbnut flashing this kind of dough.

“Why me?”

The kid says, “You smell like a good guy.” Straight faced.

Huh. Well, Jensen’s got his own business to take care of, but the kid doesn’t need to know, and the Minnow keeps her secrets. "I’ll take you, just put that away and get in."

"Really? Awesome!" Jared says. He sounds even younger, now, while he puts his wallet away, at a speed at which Jensen’s seen sloths move faster. The kid’s slanted, foxy eyes glint down at Jensen; and he wonders if the Were shapeshifts into a fox. That would be a sight to see.

“I’ll go get my stuff,” the kid says, with no sense of urgency, whatsoever.

“Fine,” Jensen grunts. And leans on the sun-warm metal of the Minnow’s frame, while Jared trots to return the restroom key, then back to the group rolling around in the parking lot. There's a lot of over-the-top whoops and back slaps and tackling hugs, sniffing armpits -- the kid lifting up his sweatshirt for access, and quick, slobbering licks to the face and hands, and dripping strands of frothy, sticky saliva flying through the air, more restrained than the leavetaking ceremonies he’s seen on documentaries, but still, seen in person, Jensen’s glad that he’s mostly human, with a smidgen of dragon blood, and no kin at all to Weres.

His phone, and a modicum of common sense -- which is all he has, so he holds himself to listening to it -- beckons, and a Google search turns up the news that the 5-Pack alliance of Montana and Idaho Weres announced a cull August 6th. Jared’s photo is in the list --looks like he’s standing next to a shed with a car in his pack’s garage or maybe a backyard-- excess male, undesirable physical traits. That’s reassuring.

So Jensen clears out the passenger side, puts the water in the Minnow’s bed, grabs a clean towel, and waits patiently.

Eventually, the kid picks up one of the many duffel bags littering the asphalt and lopes back to the Minnow, gives Jensen a bright, happy grin, takes the towel with an easy swipe of his long arms, and mops his sweaty neck, leaving his face and hands shiny with the saliva of more than a dozen Weres. Jensen tries not to look.

Puts a hand on the kid’s shoulder, to let the Minnow know the kid’s alright, and Jared slides into the passenger's seat, his long legs fitting fine into the Minnow’s footwell, no need to adjust the bench seat. The kid’s eyes pass over the shotgun in a rack, standing in the driver’s side footwell, loaded against fae, the wild one, the most common danger to travelers.

The kid sits quietly as Jensen takes them back on I-90. Down the road a ways, ‘Sam’ shudders and wipes his face and hands.

Jensen taps the yellow Grocery Outlet bag, with plastic water bottles wedged in with paper towels, gum and gummy bears. “Go ahead.”

The kid takes a bottle and proceeds to sponge-bathe himself, with a cheerful, “Thanks!” And once his face is clean, the kid fills the silence with cheerful chatter. Jensen learns that Jared is twenty-one, from the Clearwater pack, the second son of a full-were couple with three children; he’d been at the University of Montana in Missoula, one of the few Were-friendly universities, going for a degree in accounting switched to computer science of all things, because accounting was ‘super dull, man, I couldn’t take it,’ with a certificate in early childhood education, to be useful in his pack.

Jensen fishes in the grocery bag, and grabs a little box of gum: peppermint coated in a hard candy shell, Jensen’s favorite, might as well buy it, he’s eating it, and shares half the box with the kid. He chews while the kid talks ... and talks, and talks…

...and talks…

...and talks…

...and talks…

...and talks…

...and talks.

And he finds out that the kid’s a grammar critic. It’s his own fault. When the kid gives a tiny little pause, Jensen glances at him.

“That cuz of the cull?”

“Is that because of the cull,” the kid corrects. Catches himself, looks embarrassed. “My mom’s an English teacher.” Then before Jensen can say a word, the kid speaks on. "I mean, it's not like it was in the old days. We weren't chased out or anything. And the pack hasn't had a cull since ‘96, it was definitely time."

"So, what, he just... ordered you to leave?" Jensen asks.

"Well, yeah,” Jared says, no mention of his dead girlfriend, rummages again in his duffel, and takes out a gallon-size plastic bag of thick, furry-looking jerky; not appetizing at first sight, but with a scent of concentrated goodness, a warm meaty aroma, sweet and spicy and full, that makes Jensen’s stomach rumble.

“He's the alpha," Jared says, as if that explains everything. Maybe to Weres, it does. “Here, you have to try this,” and Jared hands him a slab of dried beef flecked red with chili peppers.

The kid chews and swallows, his thin neck working, sweat sleeting down his neck, and under his hoodie, Jensen would bet the kid’s shirt is wet: it’s a bad choice of clothing for the heat, and the kid runs hot: a radiating, living heat that Jensen feels from a foot and a half away. “It’s better than the dry stuff,” the kid says, goes on to say the Lolo pack sells their famous handmade wet chile jerky for the tourists, but he gets it in barter for working on the pack’s cars, easy stuff like brakes and car wards, the basic ones.

It’s delicious.

Then the kid squirms around until he's plastered to the window, with his legs scrunched on the seat. "You're gonna die if we crash," Jensen tells him, speeding up to pass a dusty sedan lumbering on the highway at 45 mph.

Jared snorts and curls onto his side, aiming the phone in Jensen's direction. It makes a shutter sound. At Jensen's questioning glance, Jared says, "My sister wants a picture of you to compare to the FBI's Most Wanted posters."

Jensen sputters out a laugh and Jared grins at him, dimples and sharp teeth.


End file.
